Pepper Money’s latest Money Mindset Report – Borrower Knowledge Gap has unveiled a significant gap between Australians’ home ownership aspirations and their financial reality.
As property prices continue to rise and the cash rate shows no signs of declining, would-be home owners are growing increasingly desperate in their bid to get their foot on the property ladder.
The vast majority of survey participants stated that they continue to dream of owning their own home one day, and a massive 89 per cent believed that home ownership remains part of the Australian dream.
Nevertheless, many respondents said they feel out of their depth when it comes to the difficult task of saving for a deposit, with 70 per cent revealing they are unsure when they will have enough savings for the home they want.
In fact, only one in five Australians said they are confident knowing when they will have saved up an adequate deposit to buy.
Mario Rehayem, CEO of Pepper Money, stated that “saving for your deposit is an important part of the home ownership journey, but our research shows that many are doing so without understanding how much is actually enough”.
He attributed much of this confusion to economic uncertainty in recent years, particularly the many cash rate hikes that have taken place over the last 18 months.
“With the cash rate jumping to 4.35 per cent from a record low 0.1 per cent at the start of May 2022 and economists seemingly divided on what the future holds for rates, it’s little wonder 73 per cent of respondents simply don’t feel confident about when they will be able to buy their first or next home,” he said.
“When it feels like the goalposts are constantly moving, it can be hard to measure how far long in your home ownership journey you really are,” he explained.
Perhaps most surprisingly of all, the survey results found that 53 per cent of respondents would be willing to accept a higher mortgage rate if it meant being able to a secure a loan more quickly.
According to Mr Rehayem, many borrowers who apply for banks’ headline interest rates are told their application is unsuccessful, but are not told why. He believes that this puts a dampener on many aspiring buyers’ hopes, and dissuades them from seeking out alternative options.
This sentiment is reflected in the data, with 52 per cent of respondents reporting that they felt unsure they would be able to secure the home loan amount that they were once offered in the past.
“There is a prevailing narrative out there that the home ownership dream is now unattainable for many,” said Mr Rehayem.
“It’s understandable that Australians may feel that they are stuck in a never-ending savings cycle.”
Earlier this year, I moved from San Francisco to New York with my dogs, kids, and husband. My family rented an apartment. And once we figured out that we liked it here and wanted to stay, we looked to buy a place.
For roughly 11 minutes, before realizing that literally any other activity would be a better use of our time. Brooklyn has 1.1 million housing units. Just a dozen of them seemed to fit our requirements and were sitting on the market. All of the options were too expensive. And that was before factoring in the obscene cost of a mortgage.
New York, in housing as in many things, is an extreme example. But the brutal mathematics is much the same across the country. At this time 15 years ago, real-estate agents had 2.2 million vacant housing units available to show prospective buyers. That number has dwindled and dwindled and now sits at just 732,000, despite the country having added 30 million people to its population. The Case-Shiller index of home prices sits near its highest-ever inflation-adjusted level; houses are unaffordable for middle-class families across the country. Rural areas are expensive. Suburbs are expensive. Cities are absurdly expensive. Nowhere is cheap. That’s in part thanks to mortgage rates. The monthly payment on a new home has increased by more than 50 percent in the past three years, as 30-year mortgage rates have climbed from less than 3 percent to nearly 8 percent.
It’s a terrible time to buy a house. But that news, bad as it is, seems to convey some promise: Someday, things will change and it will once again be a good moment to buy. You just have to wait. I’m sorry to tell you that the bad news is even worse than it sounds. It’s not going to be a good time to buy a house for a really long time. How long? I put that question to a few housing economists and real-estate experts. Their response? Who knows. A decade. “Maybe in 2030, we would start to see some relief,” Daryl Fairweather, the chief economist of Redfin, told me, before noting that 2030 was so far in the future that she could not make any kind of informed prediction.
The problem is twofold. We have a long-standing housing shortage. And we have a frozen housing market. The latter is making the former worse, and it will take years for things to even out and ease up.
The fundamental issue is that the country does not have enough homes where people want them, a consequence of a decade-plus of underbuilding after the Great Recession. Freddie Mac has estimated that the country is short 3.8 million starter homes; Realtor.com puts the deficit at 2.3 to 6.5 million total housing units; the National Association of Realtors and Rosen Consulting say it’s 5.5 million. Whatever the number, it is big. The shortage has driven up costs for buyers and renters alike—most spectacularly in megacities such as Los Angeles and New York, but pretty much everywhere at this point.
Enter the pandemic. When COVID hit, the Federal Reserve pushed interest rates down to scratch. This led to a huge surge of home sales, with the volume of deals hitting its highest level since the collapse of the real-estate bubble. Buyers scrambled to take advantage of low mortgage rates. Sellers scrambled to take advantage of soaring prices. (Many sellers, of course, are buyers too. People trade up or downsize, and are more likely to do so when borrowing costs are low.) Folks relocated to take advantage of their employers’ new work-from-home policies.
Enter inflation. Prices for everything went up because of ample demand (families were spending their “stimmies”) and stifled supply (COVID-related supply-chain problems were causing shortages of everything from couches to semiconductors). The Federal Reserve jacked up interest rates to cool down the rate of price growth. This led to a huge run-up in mortgage rates and a crash in home sales. Would-be buyers decided to rent instead of buy. Would-be sellers decided to stay put instead of moving, because why give up a 3 percent mortgage rate for a 7 percent mortgage rate? Very few units hit the market, so prices stayed high.
This is the uncomfortable equilibrium the market finds itself in today. Nobody’s selling because nobody’s buying. Nobody’s buying because nobody’s selling. Nobody can afford to sell. Nobody can afford to buy. Prices are high; mortgage costs are high. Rents are high, too, and there’s not a huge amount of rental inventory. Everyone’s stuck and paying more than they want to.
Things should calm down when the Fed eases up on borrowing costs, right? Wrong. Things will not calm down. “Once mortgage rates drop, that will reactivate the housing market, leading to more demand. With a limited supply, that would only lead to higher prices,” Fairweather told me. In other words, millions of would-be homebuyers will flood into the market, bidding one another up and pushing poorer purchasers out. More homeowners will feel motivated to sell, giving up their 3 percent mortgage rates for offers above their imagined asking prices. But nobody expects the return of a buyer’s market or anything like it.
The underlying problem remains the underlying problem. The housing shortage persists. High borrowing costs have intensified it, because so many developers and home builders take out loans to complete their projects. Until housing production ramps up for an extended period of time, until there’s considerably more supply relative to demand, things are not going to feel good. They can’t.
Many states and municipalities have passed laws to promote housing development in the past three years—easing zoning restrictions, allowing high-rises near transit hubs, and preventing owners from stopping development to protect their own home’s value. “They probably are going to move the needle on housing supply,” Fairweather told me. But building those new units will take time, time in which demand for new homes will keep growing too.
What is a family looking to buy a place to do? Buy in cash, if you happen to be rich enough to do that. (A bananas statistic: This spring, two out of every three buyers in Manhattan paid cash.) Buy and refinance when you can, if you happen to have the risk tolerance and financial room to do that. Buy with as large a down payment as you can muster to cut your mortgage costs. Or just rent. For the next decade. Forever.
Inflation fell to 4.6 per cent in October, a big drop on the 6.7 per cent recorded in September.
This surpassed the expectations of many analysts, who had predicted inflation to fall to either 4.7 per cent or 4.8 per cent.
It also represents a huge improvement on this time last year when inflation peaked at 11.1 per cent, and means the Government’s target of halving inflation to 5 per cent by the end of the year has already been hit.
One of the biggest impacts of high inflation has been much higher mortgage rates, so many homeowners will be asking whether they will now get some respite.
With inflation forecast to continue falling over the coming months, this will remove the core reason for the base rate rising in the first place.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley have already forecast that interest rates will be cut as soon as May next year and fall to 4.25 per cent by the end of 2024.
Meanwhile, Capital Economics predicts that interest rates will now be held at 5.25 per cent before they are cut during the second half of next year. It predicts that the base rate will fall to 3 per cent by late 2025.
What does falling inflation mean for mortgages?
Mortgage lenders change their fixed mortgage rates on the back of expected funding costs, which are ultimately tied into the market’s predictions about how high the base rate will ultimately go, and this is in turn closely linked to the outlook for inflation.
The more inflation falls, the more confident markets will become that interest rates will be cut in the near future.
After today’s inflation figures, many are predicting that the Bank of England will hold the base rate at 5.25 per cent before cutting rates next year.
Market expectations are reflected in swap rates. Put simply, swap rates show what financial institutions think the future holds concerning interest rates.
Swap rates have fallen in response to the inflation data, with five-year swaps falling from 4.27 per cent to 4.12 and two-year swaps falling from 4.78 per cent to 4.66 per cent since Monday.
Only as recently as July, five-year swaps were above 5 per cent. Similarly, two-year swaps were coming in around 6 per cent.
And mortgage lenders have already been reducing their rates on the back of more positive noises about inflation and the base rate.
Chris Sykes, a mortgage consultant at Private Finance, says this decline alongside today’s inflation figures may prompt further reductions.
He says: ‘Today’s inflation data may stimulate increased competitiveness among lenders, leading to further rate cuts, especially in the two-year fixed-rate residential market.
‘HSBC, swiftly followed by Halifax, announced rate cuts on the day preceding the release of the inflation figures, showcasing their confidence to act competitively in the current market and their expectations regarding future cost of funds.
‘The implications of this inflation data will contribute to shaping expectations for the direction of the base rate in the coming year, and could influence expectations of an earlier base rate decline in 2024.
‘Such a shift would directly impact tracker rates and might contribute to their increased popularity as individuals seek to “ride the rate wave” down and benefit from their flexibility.’
Matt Smith, mortgage expert at Rightmove, also expects today’s inflation figures will further encourage lenders to slash mortgage rates.
He adds: ‘Lenders have accelerated mortgage rate reductions over the last week and this morning’s positive inflation news will only fuel confidence amongst lenders further that they can continue to drop rates over the final weeks of this year, barring any last minute surprises.’
> What would a mortgage cost you? Check based on your home value and loan size
What does this mean for the housing market?
The housing market has suffered from a dearth of activity rather than a house price crash thus far.
House prices fell annually in September for the first time since April 2012, according to Land Registry figures, but the 0.1 per cent fall still means that house prices are on average, £60,000 or 26 per cent higher than they were before the first coronavirus lockdown in 2020.
But those official figures lag other reports that shopw much larger falls, for example, Nationwide’s house price index is down 3.3 per cent annually and almost 6 per cent from its August 2022 peak.
Many home sellers are also finding that they need to take much more than that off the price of their property compared to the market peak to get it sold.
Higher mortgage rates have hit transaction levels hard. According to HMRC figures, total house sales and purchases have fallen 17 per cent in the 12 months to September.
Housing market commentators believe that with inflation lower than expected in October, this will spell good news for the housing market.
Anthony Codling, head of European housing and building materials research at RBC Capital Markets says: ‘As inflation falls, it is likely that mortgage rates will follow suit.
‘Falling mortgage rates mean more people will be able to buy a home and activity in the housing market is likely to rise.
‘We expect the share prices of the UK housebuilders to react positively to the better-than-expected CPI numbers.’
Rightmove’s Matt Smith believes that lenders may relax their affordability rules, which alongside falling rates will help boost buyers’ budgets.
He adds: ‘With the markets anticipating that rates will fall back next year, coupled with recent positive wage data, lenders could begin to review their affordability criteria.
‘It has been a challenging year, with higher rates and the squeeze on affordability meaning that some movers have had to reassess their budgets and look at options such as extending mortgage terms or searching for cheaper properties.
‘An easing of affordability criteria would be positive news for many movers looking to take out a mortgage and is a trend to watch heading into 2024.’
When will mortgage rates dip below 4 per cent?
Nicholas Mendes, mortgage technical manager at broker John Charcol, warns that while mortgage rates look set to fall further, they are unlikely to dip below 4 per cent until later next year.
Mednes says: ‘I’ve seen a few brokers saying we’ll get sub 4 per cent deals on the back of today’s inflation news, but I would just give a word of warning on that.
‘While to a certain extent we will see terms like “price war” being mentioned, lenders have a small window before they start to factor in seasonal changes.
‘I expect we will see rate changes for the next 3 to 4 weeks before lenders postpone for the new year.
‘Lenders will be walking a tightrope between trying to make up for lost time and win as much business as possible, but equally being aware of the impact on service levels.
‘The last two weeks are notorious for solicitors, surveyors and lenders with staff members breaking up for the Christmas period.
‘Lenders will be trying to avoid an overhang of service levels impacting the new year start.
‘We will continue to see sharp reductions before a slow down when lenders and mortgage holders tend to put off making any decision over the Xmas period.’
Mendes believes that next year could see many more first-time and movers push on with their home moving plans.
‘Property prices are expected to continue to fall over 2024 before picking up in 2025,’ adds Mendes. ‘The main driver is affordability, due to the impact higher rates have on borrowing and affordability.
‘We are expecting to see sub 4 per cent deals arrive in the second half of next year, which is probably going to be a good time to secure an affordable deal.
‘The second half of 2024 will be a good time to buy if you’re a home mover or first time buyer, before the market picks up and the competition increases as confidence grows.
‘This confidence and competition means this will be the driver for turnaround in property prices in 2025.’
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A home on Shaw Street in Toronto that is listed for sale on Sept 28. The country’s typical home price was $741,400 in September, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association’s home price index.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
The Bank of Canada says higher interest rates have not dragged down home prices as much as expected, because a shortage of homes in the country is keeping values elevated.
The central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged Wednesday at 5 per cent – up from just 0.25 per cent in March, 2022, when the bank began a series of rapid rate hikes intended to bring inflation under control. Over that same period, the typical price of a home across the country has fallen 13 per cent, a modest decline considering the sharp increase in borrowing costs.
“Normally, house prices move pretty lockstep with interest-rate increases,” Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers said at a news conference Wednesday, where she was discussing the bank’s decision not to hike its rate further. “As interest rates come down, house prices go up a bit. And they’ll come off as interest rates come back up,” she said.
“We’re not seeing the decline in house prices that we would expect,” she continued, adding that there is a “structural lack of supply” of housing in Canada, and that until it is fixed, “interest rates on their own are not going to help us get back to a housing affordability situation or solution.”
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem, who joined Ms. Rogers at the news conference, said structural problems in the housing market are contributing to high inflation and impeding the bank’s efforts to cool growth in consumer prices.
Bank of Canada’s Tiff Macklem: 10 quotes from today’s interest rate announcement
The typical home price across the country fell as much as 17 per cent after the Bank of Canada started raising interest rates last year. But home values started to rebound in February this year after the central bank said it would take a break from hiking rates. That break lasted four months, and home prices have started to fall again. The country’s typical home price was $741,400 in September, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association’s home price index.
The average monthly rent in Canada has topped $2,000, and typical home prices in Toronto and Vancouver are more than $1-million. The cost of housing in smaller cities is significantly higher than it was before the pandemic, with home prices up by at least 50 per cent in places such as Guelph, Cambridge and Barrie in Ontario.
The federal government has taken steps intended to spur the creation of more housing. It recently announced a tax break designed to help developers build more rental units, along with plans to boost government-backed financing for the sector. The Ontario government has also cut taxes for new rental home construction.
Rob Carrick: Looking past high interest rates at the next big risk to your personal finances
Ms. Rogers welcomed these government efforts. “We’re really pleased to see the degree of focus that governments are putting on this issue right now,” she said. “That’ll help if we can address that structural imbalance. Not only will that help housing affordability, it’ll help inflationary pressures, too.”
Ms. Rogers noted that the bank’s target is not to reach a specific level of interest rates or mortgage rates. The focus, she said, is on bringing inflation back under control.
The central bank’s interest-rate decisions directly affect variable-rate mortgages, which have become more expensive with every rate hike. Many of these borrowers have not had to face higher payments, though, because most Canadian banks automatically extend the lengths of amortization periods in these cases, to keep payments steady. Those borrowers will eventually have to make higher payments when their mortgage terms end and they are required to go back to their original amortization periods.
Ms. Rogers said the Bank of Canada is paying close attention to the mortgage renewal cycle. Three of Canada’s largest lenders have disclosed that about 20 per cent of their residential mortgage borrowers are seeing their balances grow, because their monthly payments no longer cover all the interest they owe.
According to the firm’s Quarterly Rental Review for July to September 2023, Australia’s vacancy rate fell to a new record low 1.1 per cent in September, with Adelaide (0.3 per cent), Perth (0.5 per cent) and Melbourne (0.8 per cent) all turning out sub-1 per cent vacancy rates.
Inspiring this plummeting of available rental properties is a continuation of an extreme shortfall in rental listings, which has resulted in the total count of national rental listings falling to its lowest level since November 2012.
CoreLogic economist and report author Kaytlin Ezzy explained: “The situation of low rental vacancy rates and insufficient housing supply is a broad issue impacting regions around the country to different extents.”
In addition to the listings shortfall, Ms Ezzy noted record high net overseas migration, impacted by net arrival figures exceeding departures, has played a key role in this reduction of available rentals.
Over the four weeks to 1 October, the total count of national rental listings fell to its lowest level in nearly 11 years, with around 90,153 properties available for rent. Ms Ezzy revealed this equates to a rental shortfall of around 47,500, with total listings down 15.1 per cent on the levels reported this time last year, and 34.5 per cent below the previous five-year average.
And while it may be doom and gloom for prospective renters, tenants with a roof over their head will be relieved by CoreLogic’s data concluding the pace of rental growth has continued easing.
After recording the smallest monthly rise since September 2020 in August (0.4 per cent), national rents ticked up 0.7 per cent in the ninth month of the year, Ms Ezzy revealed. Sydney, Brisbane and Darwin all reported 0.9 per cent increases in rent in September, followed by Perth (0.8 per cent), Melbourne (0.6 per cent) and Adelaide (0.5 per cent).
On the other end of the spectrum, rents dropped 0.7 per cent in Hobart and 0.2 per cent in Canberra.
“Worsening affordability continues to be a significant factor placing downward pressure on the pace of rental growth in recent months,” she said. However, despite the recent easing of rent growth, Ms Ezzy did provide a caveat that nationally rents remain 30.4 per cent higher than they were in mid-2020.
“After recording a small dip over the first few months of COVID, national rents have risen for 38 consecutive months,” she said, adding tenants are now $137 worse off on average than they were in July 2020.
“With the rising cost of living adding additional pressure on renter’s balance sheets, it is likely tenants have hit an affordability ceiling, seeking to grow their households to share the growing rental burden,” Ms Ezzy explained.
Australian capital cities continued experiencing faster rental growth than the nation’s regional pockets, rising 1.9 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively in the third quarter of the year.
Darwin registered the highest quarterly rate of rental growth (3.3 per cent), followed by Brisbane and Perth (both 2.5 per cent). The Northern Territory capital’s median rent was around $615, with tenants charged $614 and $604 per week in Brisbane and Perth respectively.
In the three months to September, rents also rose in Melbourne (2.3 per cent), Sydney (1.7 per cent) and Adelaide (1.7 per cent), while Hobart and Canberra reported quarterly declines of 2.7 per cent and 0.9 per cent respectively.
The NSW capital possessed the nation’s most expensive rental market ($726 per week on average). In Adelaide, weekly rents ended the quarter at approximately $548, slightly less than Melbourne’s $553.
Hobart’s decline saw it rank as the nation’s most affordable capital, with median weekly rents of $529, while Canberra ranked only behind Sydney in terms of unaffordability with a median weekly rent of $649.
Ms Ezzy pointed out the gulf between house and unit rents continued widening in the September quarter, owing to “worsening affordability in the unit sector, coupled with a potential shift towards larger rental households.” This, she noted, “has likely helped rebalance demand between the two property types.”
“Since peaking at 4.3 per cent over the three months to April, the pace of quarterly rental growth across Australia’s unit sector has plummeted more than two-thirds, taking the gap between the median house and median unit rents from $33 in May to $36 in September,” Ms Ezzy said.
“Much of the unit sector’s relative affordability has been eroded through the recent rental surge, with unit rents rising 11.7 per cent over the past 12 months compared to the 7.1 per cent rise in house rents,” she added.
By Stephen Johnson, Economics Reporter For Daily Mail Australia
04:12 04 Oct 2023, updated 04:41 04 Oct 2023
Higher interest rates could give first-home buyers their chance to get on the property ladder as landlords are forced to sell, a real estate agent says.
LJ Hooker’s head of research Mathew Tiller said a big surge in monthly mortgage repayments since the Reserve Bank rate hikes began in May 2022 could lead to more investors selling their rental properties.
‘Investors looking to sell up will be welcome news for first home buyers who generally tend to be purchasing in the same market,’ he said.
A very tight rental vacancy rate has coincided with record immigration, with 454,400 foreigners moving to Australia in the year to March.
While capital city rents have soared by 16 per cent during the past year, monthly mortgage repayments have surged by an even more dramatic 63 per cent, following the RBA’s 12 interest rate increases in little more than a year.
That has led to a widening gap between rental income and mortgage repayments.
This has seen landlords sell for a 50 per cent capital gains tax discount rather than claim the rental losses as a negative gearing tax break.
‘While rents have been increasing, there is evidence some investors are looking to sell as the gap between income and expenses widens,’ Mr Tiller said.
Nationally, the number of homes being sold under distress rose by 1.3 per cent to 5,246 in September, SQM Research data showed.
Mr Tiller is expecting more homes to go on the market in late October, after the Reserve Bank this month kept interest rates on hold at an 11-year high of 4.1 per cent.
‘Auction volumes were softer last weekend due to the long weekends in most states and territories, but volumes will rebound through the rest of October,’ he said.
Credit ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service is expecting more home borrowers to be in arrears, where they are 30 days or more behind in their mortgage repayments.
‘Australian residential mortgage delinquency rates, which increased in the June quarter, will continue to rise through the rest of this year as high interest rates and inflation erode household savings,’ analysts Alena Chen and Philip Au said.
In the June quarter, the delinquency rate for home loans rose to 1.38 per cent, up from 1.25 per cent in the March quarter, as the Reserve Bank raised interest rates two more times.
‘While the Reserve Bank of Australia has paused its cycle of interest rates rises, the central bank’s steep rate hikes between May 2022 and June 2023 have considerably raised mortgage repayment costs,’ Moody’s said.
Martin Bregozzo, the managing director of Civil Property Valuers, said first-home buyers would be hoping to capitalise on more supply coming on to the market as distressed borrowers were forced to sell.
‘I suppose they would be thinking to themselves, “It’s a lot of money we’re spending on rent, it would be great to get a house or an apartment”,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
But he said even if more investors sold out, housing affordability would be unlikely to improve for first-home buyers.
‘There’s a shortage of options available to buy so even if you were ready to go, there’s not much out there,’ Mr Bregozzo said.
‘Some first-home buyers or people who are progressing up to the next level, that would allow that sort of movement to happen.
‘Some become home owners, others who were paying a mortgage have gone back to renting – there’s going to be this shuffle there but it’s not going to do anything to make housing more affordable.’
The national average new mortgage for owner-occupiers in August stood at $584,907, Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed.
But in New South Wales, that figures was $722,132.
The ABS didn’t publish first-home buyer data in August but in May, property newcomers had an 11.6 per cent share of the overall value of new owner-occupier loans.
That meant the vast majority of those people buying a property, who already owned one, had a vested interest in prices going up.
‘The second they become a home owner, they just want the values to keep going up,’ Mr Bregozzo said.
Higher interest rates, lower inventor keeps Kansas City housing prices high and homebuyers scrambling
It’s no secret that the housing market right now is complicated – or chaotic, depending on who you ask. There’s a couple of reasons why.The main reason is interest rates are going up – but prices aren’t going down. House prices aren’t going down because there’s no homes for sale right now.Look around most neighborhoods, and it’s tough to find a home for sale. It took six weeks, and $60,000 more than they initially budgeted – but Sarah Hogan and Joey Tangeman bought a home in Olathe. And they count themselves lucky.”We waited through 2020, 2021, and 2022. And then we’re like – okay – if we wait any longer, we’re going to get priced out of everything,” explained Hogan. “We gotta jump in, we gotta do it. Because if we don’t we’re never going to buy a house.”Hogan and Tangeman put in three offers this summer. For the first two, they put in offers more than $20,000 over the asking price – and still missed out. “We had to swallow the fact that we’re going to be paying more than we wanted to every month,” said Hogan, “but it meant we’d actually be able to afford a house and get a house. They say they never changed their standards, just their budget.Right now, there are roughly 5,000 homes for sale in the Kansas City metro; that’s down almost 13% from a year ago. And because the inventory is so low, home prices can stay high. They’er 4.5% higher than this time a year ago, according to the Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors.Mike Frazier explained how the market got here. “To explain this market, I think you have to go all the way back to 2008. The Great Recession that happened really pushed a lot of builders and developers out of the market. And those builders and developers – a lot of them haven’t come back. Inventory has been a problem for the last 5 years.””Most builders and developers don’t want to build in the 200,000, 300,000, 400,000 dollar range,” the President and CEO of ReeceNichols continued, “which is where we need all our houses. They can’t make enough money at that price point. They want to build in the higher price point, we need housing in the lower price point.”In the last 10 years, the average home price has doubled in the KC metro area, from roughly $140,000 to more than $350,000.Frazier quipped, “the best time to buy a house is yesterday.”There aren’t a lot of options for anyone looking to spend fewer than 400,000 on a home, and it won’t remedy itself for years to come.”Over the next, probably, eight years, you’ll see a lot of baby boomers moving out of their houses. And that will release some of the pent-up demand that’s there from a sales side,” Frazier explained.”But until we get there, you’re going to have to be patient, you’re going to have to overbid on properties,” the way Hogan and Tangeman did. “You’re going to have to look at your budget and decide what can I truly afford, and know that housing prices aren’t going down.””Prices aren’t coming down anytime soon – if ever,” said new homeowner Tangeman.”Interest rates are going up. We don’t have a crystal ball or anything to know if it’s going down or up. but with the way it’s been going the last couple of months,” Tangeman noted, “we locked in at an interest rate, and that’s already higher than where we locked in at, and that’s just two weeks ago.”
KANSAS CITY, Mo. —
It’s no secret that the housing market right now is complicated – or chaotic, depending on who you ask. There’s a couple of reasons why.
The main reason is interest rates are going up – but prices aren’t going down. House prices aren’t going down because there’s no homes for sale right now.
Look around most neighborhoods, and it’s tough to find a home for sale. It took six weeks, and $60,000 more than they initially budgeted – but Sarah Hogan and Joey Tangeman bought a home in Olathe. And they count themselves lucky.
“We waited through 2020, 2021, and 2022. And then we’re like – okay – if we wait any longer, we’re going to get priced out of everything,” explained Hogan. “We gotta jump in, we gotta do it. Because if we don’t we’re never going to buy a house.”
Hogan and Tangeman put in three offers this summer. For the first two, they put in offers more than $20,000 over the asking price – and still missed out.
“We had to swallow the fact that we’re going to be paying more than we wanted to every month,” said Hogan, “but it meant we’d actually be able to afford a house and get a house. They say they never changed their standards, just their budget.
Right now, there are roughly 5,000 homes for sale in the Kansas City metro; that’s down almost 13% from a year ago. And because the inventory is so low, home prices can stay high. They’er 4.5% higher than this time a year ago, according to the Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors.
Mike Frazier explained how the market got here. “To explain this market, I think you have to go all the way back to 2008. The Great Recession that happened really pushed a lot of builders and developers out of the market. And those builders and developers – a lot of them haven’t come back. Inventory has been a problem for the last 5 years.”
“Most builders and developers don’t want to build in the 200,000, 300,000, 400,000 dollar range,” the President and CEO of ReeceNichols continued, “which is where we need all our houses. They can’t make enough money at that price point. They want to build in the higher price point, we need housing in the lower price point.”
In the last 10 years, the average home price has doubled in the KC metro area, from roughly $140,000 to more than $350,000.
Frazier quipped, “the best time to buy a house is yesterday.”
There aren’t a lot of options for anyone looking to spend fewer than 400,000 on a home, and it won’t remedy itself for years to come.
“Over the next, probably, eight years, you’ll see a lot of baby boomers moving out of their houses. And that will release some of the pent-up demand that’s there from a sales side,” Frazier explained.
“But until we get there, you’re going to have to be patient, you’re going to have to overbid on properties,” the way Hogan and Tangeman did. “You’re going to have to look at your budget and decide what can I truly afford, and know that housing prices aren’t going down.”
“Prices aren’t coming down anytime soon – if ever,” said new homeowner Tangeman.
“Interest rates are going up. We don’t have a crystal ball or anything to know if it’s going down or up. but with the way it’s been going the last couple of months,” Tangeman noted, “we locked in at an interest rate, and that’s already higher than where we locked in at, and that’s just two weeks ago.”
Queensland sales of investor-owned property are ballooning as interest rates rise and landlords flee
By Jade Hobman For Daily Mail Australia
02:23 05 Aug 2023, updated 02:24 05 Aug 2023
- Aussie investors ‘over it’ as they bow out of the property market
- Queensland sales of investor-owned property have ballooned
Property investors in one state are ‘over it’ as they bow out of the market in droves amid rising interest rates and higher land taxes.
Sales of Queensland investor-owned property increased to almost a third of all homes sold in June, according to PropTrack research.
It comes as owners across Australia face skyrocketing property taxes and rental price cap speculation – adding pressure to their high mortgage repayments.
Sales of owner-investor properties in Queensland grew by eight per cent in just one month – up to 29.5 per cent of all house sales, higher than other state.
PropTrack statistics also revealed more than 21 per cent of landlords have been exiting the market after the introduction of land tax legislation in the state.
Jett Jones of Ray White Marsden in Logan told News Corp three clients have called her this week wanting to offload their investment properties saying, ‘I quote unquote; “We’re over it, interest rates are too high”.’
She added that within the last month landlords have been asking about listing their properties – with many of them being long-term investors.
PropTrack senior economist Paul Ryan said statistics showed investors are responding to the current market.
‘It’s starting to suggest, perhaps, now with interest rates increasing significantly… that financial pressures on investors, or even expected cash flow over the coming period, is pushing them to exit their investments,’ Mr Ryan said.
‘What’s concerning is investor sentiment is very poor. Investors are a big pathway to building homes, and the long-term solution to the rental crisis. We need a really strong investor component in the market to facilitate new supply to come in.’
But he said the amount of new stock on the market could be good opportunities for other wanna-be investors to buy up.
‘Because investors and owner-occupiers often compete for the same properties, that could be a positive for buyers over the coming period,’ Mr Ryan said.
There are other factors blindsiding landlords like concerns over the rental crisis and land tax hikes.
The Queensland government put in new legislation forbidding landlords to increase rent by more than once a year.
It also brought in new land legislation in June 2022 that taxed landlords based on their entire Australian property portfolio rather than what they owned in Queensland.
But the government abandoned the proposals in September after strong backlash.
MCG Quantity Surveyors managing director Mike Mortlock said the government’s actions have been forcing investors to get rid of their stock.
He said the government should focus more on the value of investors who provide housing for renters.
Meanwhile, Victorian landlords are also selling up stock with PropTrack research also revealing 29 per cent of sales in June were investor-owned properties.
By Tilly Armstrong Consumer Reporter For Dailymail.Com
17:29 01 Aug 2023, updated 19:16 01 Aug 2023
- The average property spends 42 days on the market, according to the study by Portland Real Estate
- Hawaii is the state where properties spend the longest on the market, followed by Louisiana and Mississippi
- Homes in New Hampshire are the quickest to sell – typically spending just 23 days on the market
Hawaii is the state where it takes the longest time to sell your home, it has been revealed, with properties spending an average of 65 days on the market.
Louisiana is second on the list – with 60 days – while Mississippi comes in third with an average of 58 days, according to research by real estate company Portland Real Estate.
The firm analyzed Zillow data and found that, nationwide, it takes the average property 42 days be sold, the study found.
The news comes amid a widespread cooling of the property market across the US, sparked by rising mortgage rates. An average homebuyer is now facing payments nearly $1,000 per month more expensive than two years ago as interest rates hover around 7 percent.
Rising rates have sidelined buyers and prompted some homeowners to ‘lock into’ their property to cling to cheaper mortgage deals.
According to the study, the metro area within Hawaii where residents are struggling the most to sell their homes is Kapaa, a small town on Kauai with an estimated population of around 11,000 people. Here, a house is on the market for an average of 101 days.
In Louisiana, the historical city of Opelousas is where homes take the longest to sell – spending an average of 87 days on the market.
In Greenwood, Mississippi, residents are having the most trouble selling their homes, with properties typically spending 120 days on the market – over double the average for the rest of the state.
In joint fourth position are New Mexico and Florida where it takes the typical home owner 55 days to sell – 13 days longer than the national average.
New York comes in fifth position with properties spending an average of 54 days before an offer is accepted. In Malone, a town in Franklin County, New York, homes take the longest to sell – with an average of 91 days on the market.
North Dakota, Arkansas, Montana and Alabama round out the top ten states where properties are languishing on the market.
Homes in New Hampshire, on the other hand, are the quickest to sell – typically spending just 23 days on the market, the study found.
Some 5.62 million homes sold through November last year, according to Redfin, down 16.6 per cent year over year, a sharp decrease from the 6.74 million sold in 2021 during the same period.
A cooldown of the property market has even begun to affect luxury properties, according to experts.
One of Seattle’s most expensive homes has been relisted on the market with a $15 million price cut – illustrating how high-end homes are not immune from a dampened market.
The five-bedroom mansion in Hunts Point, a town on the eastern shore of Lake Washington, went on the market in spring 2022 for $85 million, but was taken off after it did not sell.
This summer, the luxurious home which is owned by Telecoms magnate Bruce McCaw and was prior to that by saxophonist Kenny G, was relisted for $70 million.
According to a separate Redfin report, sales of luxury properties – which it defines as those estimated to be in the top 5 percent based on market value – in the US declined 44.6 percent year over year during the three months ending January 31, 2023.
This outpaced the decline in sales of non-luxury homes, which also dropped by 37.5 percent in the same period.
Listed commercial property companies collectively own $20 billion worth of office, retail and industrial assets across New Zealand, but that value is expected to fall by millions more as higher interest rates take hold.
This cyclical event of declining asset values was more painful than the global financial crisis because it was coupled with rising debt costs, Forsyth Barr senior equities analyst Rohan Koreman-Smit told Markets with Madison.
“We’ve currently got interest costs where investors raising debt to buy some of these assets need to pay 7 or 8 per cent. Making that work from an investment basis … is tough.”
The market had already priced the pressure in, with real estate under-performing the broader NZX Top 50 index for the majority of the past 12 months.
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However, the firms were all trading at a discount to their net assets, suggesting they could be a value investment.
“That’s the million dollar question … Are they absolutely cheap?”
Watch Koreman-Smit answer that question in today’s episode of Markets with Madison above.
Plus, Vital Healthcare Property Trust fund manager Aaron Hockly reveals how it’s managing higher interest costs as it develops more private hospitals.
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He explains what Vital will do when it runs out of debt headroom in 12 months’ time – a hint, investors should expect lower returns.
Get investment insights from the experts on Markets with Madison every Monday and Friday on the NZ Herald.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this programme is of a general nature, and is not intended to be personalised financial advice. We encourage you to seek appropriate advice from a qualified professional to suit your individual circumstances.
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Madison Reidy is the host of New Zealand’s only financial markets show, Markets with Madison. She joined the Herald in 2022 after working in investment, and has covered business and economics for television and radio broadcasters.